2023 Steam Awards Controversy

Overview

2023 Steam Awards Controversy, also known as 2023 Steam Awards Trolling, refers to questions surrounding the 2023 Steam Awards, which are awarded based on the votes of players or users. In particular, two awards handed out are suspected of being troll picks by players, intended to ironically mock the games and their developers: the "Most Innovative Gameplay Award," given to Starfield, and the "Labor of Love Award," which celebrates games that receive continued developer support, given to Red Dead Redemption II (RDR2). In both cases, it is suspected that players intentionally voted for these games because they epitomized the opposite of what their respective awards stood for. Upon their announcement, the two awards confused many, generating media coverage, discussions and memes online in early January 2024.

Background

Each year, the Steam Awards are awarded by player-based voting and nominations. On December 16th, 2023, Steam announced the player-voted nominees for the year's Steam Awards, which included Starfield for "Most Innovative Gameplay" and Red Dead Redemption II for "Labor of Love."^[1]

On January 2nd, 2024, the winners were then announced, and while many selections were not controversial or unexpected, such as Baldur's Gate 3 winning "Game of the Year," Starfield and Red Dead Redemption II's victories drew media attention for likely being troll picks by the Steam community.^[2]

Many suspected Starfield was a troll pick, as one of the main criticisms of the game from its many critics was that it was arguably boring, and others noted its concept of infinite space exploration had been attempted before by No Man's Sky. ^[2]

In Red Dead Redemption II's case, the game is infamous for lacking dev support (particularly Red Dead Online), despite being well-liked by many players. Forbes^[2] wrote, "Here’s Red Dead Redemption 2 winning, a game that is notorious for Rockstar all but abandoning it, never making story DLC and rarely supporting Red Dead Online in the way the community wanted, and certainly not this past year."

On January 2nd, PC Gamer^[3] tweeted, "Did you guys really nominate Red Dead Redemption 2, a game that hasn't been updated since 2020, for the Labor of Love award in the Steam Awards 2023?", gaining over 140 retweets and 1,700 likes in one day (shown below).

Developments

While it is not confirmed that either award was won through ironic troll voting, many online assumed that was the case due to the highly publicized issues players had with innovation and dev support in Starfield and Red Dead Redemption II, respectively. This led to jokes and commentary on the apparent prank players played on the two games and their devs.

For example, on January 2nd, 2024, Twitter user hejibits^[4] joked, "Tired: devs rigged the Steam Awards, gamers are stupid, etc. / Wired: gamers are the most spiteful consumer demographic and will use what little voice they have to sarcastically highlight bland & abandoned (respectively) products," gaining over 20 retweets and 110 likes in one day (shown below, left). That same day, user @MischiefsYT^[5] also suspected the awards were a troll job, writing, "There's no way it wasn't some massive troll vote for most of the Steam Awards this year…", gaining over 10 retweets and 100 likes in the same timeframe (shown below, right).

Search Interest

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External References